| Saint Louis de Montfort | |
|---|---|
St. Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort |
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| Confessor | |
| Born | 31 January 1673 Montfort-sur-Meu, France |
| Died | 28 April 1716 (aged 43) Saint-Laurent-sur-Sèvre |
| Honored in | Roman Catholic Church |
| Beatified | 1888 by Pope Leo XIII |
| Canonized | 1947 by Pope Pius XII |
| Feast | 28 April |
St. Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort (31 January 1673 – 28 April 1716) was canonized in 1947. He was a French priest and known in his time as a preacher and author, whose books, still widely read, have influenced a number of popes.
He is considered as one of the early proponents of the field of Mariology as it is known today, and a candidate to become a Doctor of the Church. His "founders statue" by Giacomo Parisini is now placed at the Upper Niche of the South Nave within Saint Peter's Basilica at the Vatican.[1]
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He was born in Montfort-sur-Meu, the eldest surviving child of the large family of Jean-Baptiste Grignion, a notary, and his wife Jeanne Robert who was known for being deeply Catholic. He passed most of his infancy and early childhood in Iffendic, a few kilometers from Montfort, where his father had bought a farm. At the age of 12, he entered the Jesuit College of St Thomas Becket in Rennes.
At some time during his college days, he became aware of a call to the priesthood, and at the end of his ordinary schooling, began his studies of philosophy and theology, still at St Thomas in Rennes. Listening to the stories of a local priest, the Abbé Julien Bellier, about his life as an itinerant missionary, he was inspired to preach missions among the very poor. And, under the guidance of some other priests he began to develop his strong devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
He was then given the opportunity, through a benefactor, to go to Paris to study at the renowned Seminary of Saint-Sulpice towards the end of 1693. When he arrived in Paris, it was to find that his benefactor had not provided enough money for him, so he lodged in a succession of boarding houses, living among the very poor, in the meantime attending the Sorbonne University for lectures in theology. After less than two years, he became very ill and had to be hospitalized. Somehow he survived his hospitalization and the blood letting that was part of his treatment at the time.
Upon his release from the hospital, to his surprise he found himself with a place reserved at the Little Saint-Sulpice, which he entered in July 1695. Saint-Sulpice had been founded by Jean-Jacques Olier, one of the leading exponents of what came to be known as the French school of spirituality. Given that he was appointed the librarian, his time at Saint-Sulpice, gave him the opportunity to study most of the available works on spirituality and, in particular, on the Virgin Mary's place in the Christian life. This later lead to his focus on the Holy Rosary and his acclaimed book the Secret of the Rosary.
He was ordained a priest in June 1700, and assigned to Nantes. His letters of this period show that he felt frustrated from the lack of opportunity to preach as he felt he was called to do. He considered various options, even that of becoming a hermit, but the conviction that he was called to "preach missions to the poor" increased.
Five months after his ordination, in November 1700 he joined the Third Order of the Dominicans and asked permission not only to preach the rosary, but to also form rosary confraternities.[2] The same month he wrote: :"I am continually asking in my prayers for a poor and small company of good priests to preach missions and retreats under the standard and protection of the Blessed Virgin". This initial thought eventually led to the formation of the Company of Mary. At around this time, he first met Blessed Marie Louise Trichet when he was appointed the chaplain of the hospital of Poitiers. That meeting became the beginning of Blessed Marie Louise's thirty-four years of service to the poor.
Frustrated with the local bishops, he set off to make a pilgrimage to Rome, to ask Pope Clement XI, what he should do. The Pope recognised his real vocation and, telling him that there was plenty of scope for its exercise in France, sent him back with the title of Apostolic Missionary.
For several years he preached in missions from Brittany to Nantes, and his reputation as a great missioner grew, and he became known as "the good Father from Montfort". At Pontchateau he attracted thousands of people to help him in the construction of a huge Calvary. This was to be the cause of one of his greatest disappointments, for the very eve of its blessing, the Bishop, having heard that it was to be destroyed on the orders of the King of France under the influence of members of the Jansenist school, forbade its benediction. It is reported that upon receiving this news, he told the thousands awaiting the blessing: "We had hoped to build a Calvary here; let us build it in our hearts. Blessed be God."
He left Nantes and the next several years were extraordinarily busy for him. He was constantly occupied in preaching missions, always travelling on foot between one and another. Yet he found time also to write - his True Devotion to Mary,[3][4][5] the Secret of Mary[6][7] and the Secret of the Rosary, rules for the Company of Mary and the Daughters of Wisdom, and many Hymns. His missions made a great impact, especially in the Vendée.
The heated style of his preaching was regarded by some people as somewhat strange and he was poisoned once. Although it did not prove fatal, it caused his health to deteriorate. Yet he continued, undeterred. He went on preaching and established free schools for the poor boys and girls.
The bishop of La Rochelle had been impressed with Montfort for some time and invited him to open a school there. Montfort enlisted the help of his follower Marie Louise Trichet who was then running the General Hospital in Poitiers. In 1715 Marie Louise and Catherine Brunet left Poitiers for La Rochelle to open the school there and in a short time it had 400 students.
On August 22, 1715, Blessed Marie Louise Trichet and Catherine Brunet, along with Marie Valleau and Marie Régnier from La Rochelle received the approbation of Bishop de Champflour of La Rochelle to perform their religious profession under the direction of Montfort. At the ceremony Montfort told them: "Call yourselves the Daughters of Wisdom, for the teaching of children and the care of the poor." The Daughters of Wisdom grew into an international organization and the placing of Montfort's founders statue in Saint Peter's Basilica was based on that organization.
Worn out by hard work and sickness, he finally came in April 1716 to Saint-Laurent-sur-Sèvre to begin the mission which was to be his last. During it, he fell ill and died on 28 April of that year. He was 43 years old, and had been a priest for only 16 years. His last sermon was on the tenderness of Jesus and the Incarnate Wisdom of the Father. Thousands gathered for his burial in the parish church, and very quickly there were stories of miracles performed at his tomb.
Exactly 43 years later, on April 28, 1759, Marie Louise Trichet also died in Saint-Laurent-sur-Sèvre and was buried next to Montfort.
On September 19, 1996, Pope John Paul II (who beatified Trichet) came to the same site to meditate and pray on their adjacent tombs.
In June 1700, when a young Louis de Montfort was ordained a priest, he was but another young and idealistic man who wanted to be the champion of the poor, having been inspired as a teenager to preach to the poor. But he also had a very strong devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary and was prepared to risk his life for it. Centuries later, he influenced four popes (Pope Leo XIII, Pope Pius X, Pope Pius XII and Pope John Paul II), and is now being considered as a Doctor of the Church.[8][9] [10][11][12]
Pope Leo XIII and Pope Pius X both relied on de Montfort in their writings and promulgated his Marian vision. It has been said, that the Marian encyclical of Pius X, Ad Diem Illum was not only influenced but penetrated by the Mariology of Montfort.[13] and, that both Leo XIII and Pius X applied the Marian analysis of Montfort to their analysis of the Church as a whole.[14]
Pope Leo XIII was concerned about secular attempts to destroy the faith in Christ, and, if possible, to ban him from the face of the earth.[15] In his analysis, the destruction of the ethical order would lead to disaster and war, so Leo XIII dedicated the human race to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. But in his analysis (based on Montfort's writings) any re-Christianisation was not possible without the Blessed Virgin Mary, so in ten encyclicals on the rosary he promulgated Marian devotion. In his encyclical on the fiftieth anniversary of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, he stressed her role in the redemption of humanity, mentioning Mary as Mediatrix and Co-Redemptrix, in the spirit and words of Louis de Montfort.[14]
Pope Leo XIII then beatified him in 1888, and, as a special honour selected for Montfort's beatification the very day of his own Golden Jubilee as a priest.
The key Marian encyclical Ad Diem Illum was issued in 1904 in commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. It gave Pius X the opportunity to urge his intensified Marian devotion in his second encyclical, and relied heavily on the views expressed in Montfort's book True Devotion to Mary.
In fact the language of both writings is strikingly similar, which is not surprising, since Saint Pius highly esteemed True Devotion and granted an Apostolic Blessing to all who read it. Echoing Montfort, Pius X wrote: "There is no surer or easier way than Mary in uniting all men with Christ."[16]
Pope Pius XII was often called the most Marian pope. He was impressed by Montfort's work God Alone and when he canonized Montfort on July 27, 1947, he said:
Pope John Paul II once recalled how as a young seminarian he "read and reread many times and with great spiritual profit" a work of de Montfort and that:
According to his Apostolic Letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae, the pontif's personal motto "Totus Tuus" was inspired by St. Louis' doctrine on the excellence of Marian devotion and total consecration, which he quoted:
The thoughts, writings, and example of St. Louis de Montfort, an example of the French school of spirituality, were also singled out by Pope John Paul II's encyclical Redemptoris Mater as a distinctive witness of Marian spirituality in the Catholic tradition. In an address to the Montfortian Fathers, the pontiff also said that his reading the saint's work True Devotion to Mary was a "decisive turning point" in his life.
While the saint is best known for his spiritual writings, he was also a poet and during his missions managed to compose more than 20,000 verses of hymns.[19][20]
Saint Louis's life coincided with some of the great highlights of French literature and Molière, Pierre Corneille and Jean Racine dominated the literature of his day. Yet Montfort believed that his battle-cry, "God Alone!" did not allow him to encourage his people to prefer classical works over sacred hymns. Montfort’s hymns and canticles were, for the most part, meant to be sung in village churches and in the homes of the poor. They were aimed at the masses and had a missionary motive above all. Some authors argue that a reading of Saint Louis’s hymns is essential for an understanding of him as a man and for appreciating his approach to spirituality.[21]
Montfort was a missionary at heart and many of his hymns were addressed to the people whom he was evangelizing. He went from one parish to another with his ever-growing collection of hymns to be sung during the parish mission. But he also wrote hymns to express his own personal feelings, e.g. his numerous hymns in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Based on the analysis of Bishop Hendrik Frehen of the Company of Mary, Montfortian hymns fall into two major categories: "inspired" and "didactic." The inspired canticles flow spontaneously, on the occasion of a pilgrimage to a Marian shrine, or on the occasion of a joyful celebration. The didactic hymns took more effort and time to compose, and focus on instructional and informative qualities: they teach the audience through the use of a moral and a theme.
After the Saint Louis's death, the Company of Mary (which continued his work of preaching parish renewals) made great use of his hymns and used them as instruments of evangelization.
Louis de Montfort was a priest and a preacher for only 16 years, often having risked everything along the way. Some years before his death, he wrote to the Blessed Marie Louise Trichet, the first Daughter of Wisdom:
But it is worth noting that based on his autobiography, his sixteen years of priesthood include many months of solitude, perhaps as many as a total of four years: at the cave of Mervent, amidst the beauty of the forest, at the hermitage of Saint Lazarus near the village of Montfort, at the hermitage of Saint Eloi in La Rochelle, at Mont Saint-Michel, etc. This gave him time to think, contemplate and write.
The saint's birthplace and tomb are now sites of "Montfortian pilgrimages" with about 25,000 visitors each year. The house in which he was born is at No 15, Rue de la Saulnerie in Montfort-sur-Meu. It is now jointly owned by the three Montfortian congregations he formed: the Montfort Missionaries, the Daughters of Wisdom and the Brothers of St Gabriel. The Basilica of Saint Louis de Montfort at Saint-Laurent-sur-Sèvre is an impressive structure that attracts a good number of pilgrims each year.
The congregations de Montfort left behind, the Company of Mary, the Daughters of Wisdom, and the Brothers of Saint Gabriel (whose congregation developed from the group of lay-brothers gathered round him), grew and spread, first in France, then throughout the world.
God Alone was the motto of Saint Louis and is repeated over 150 time in his writings. God Alone is also the title of his collected writings. Briefly speaking, based on his writings, Montfortian spirituality can be summed up via the formula: "To God Alone, by Christ Wisdom, in the Spirit, in communion with Mary, for the reign of God."
Although St Louis is perhaps best-known for his Mariology and devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, his spirituality is founded on the mystery of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, and is centered on Christ.
Grignion de Montfort's approach of "total consecration to Jesus Christ through Mary" had a strong impact on Roman Catholic Mariology both in popular piety and in the spirituality of religious orders. As one of the classical writers of Christian spirituality, Saint Louis de Montfort is a candidate to become a Doctor of the Church. His book True Devotion to Mary has been considered one the most influential Marian books.
St. Louis was a strong believer in the power of the rosary and his popular book The Secret of the Rosary is approved by the Catholic Church and is an easily readable, yet multi-perspective approach to the Holy Rosary. It provides specific methods for praying the rosary with more devotion. It has been read by Catholics worldwide for over two centuries and is one of the earliest works to establish modern Mariology.
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